So, um, Byakko City... It's basically an entire city full of Givers. Rude, useless assholes that do nothing but make life difficult for everyone else.

And yet somehow likable. Case in point: my presence in this LP.

Going clockwise, starting with this guy...

Byakko Citizen #1: I'm going to bet 100 BIT on you!
Byakko Civilian 08: There's more players in this city! But it's only your imagination that you can't see them!
Byakko Citizen #2: Oh, he's just a kid! That's no challenge!
Byakko Citizen #3: Heh heh heh, looks like another strong one is here again!

These guys are a little more genial than those jerks manning the stalls outside, but they're sitll not entirely making me feel at ease. Seriously, what's up with Byakko Civilian 08? What is he even trying to say?

Something, something, we're all invisible because legend.

Byakko Citizen?: Oh, you must be the new challenger! Please come inside! Byakko Leader is waiting for you!

Then he gets out of our way. Hey, so long as we get to fight the Leader without dealing with all kinds of shitty fetch quests, I'm not complaining (too much.)

Byakko Civillian?[sic]: Hurry and go fight with our leader!

Damn it, game, you'd done so well for a while, did you have to fuck up his name? After getting the early one right?

Hey, wait. Why isn't the Leader Battle music playing? And why does the Leader only have two Digimon?

RUSED! WE'VE BEEN RUSED!

...And why are they both sewage slugs?

Worst disguise ever.

Eh, we won, whatever.

Kite: OK, then... So what about this guy called Lucky Mouse...
Byakko Leader: Hold on a minute. The Byakko Badge is in that room. I'll listen to you after you get it.
Kite: OK, I'll be right back, so wait here!

Kite, having no concept of pattern recognition, just happily walks past into the Storage Room.

Y'know, I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but this probably wasn't it.

Wow, these guys are pretty much personified. Anyway, let's go escape from this inescapable cave.

Not enough channeling the forces of darkness.

Log out! Just log out! If this is a place where a player is held against their will, you might just return to town!

Yeti why

(The Underground Cave is small, one room, and has no encounters. The music isn't even very good.)

???: I'm no rock!
Kite: Woah, wha... What?!

It's our old buddy, Numemon! ...Couldn't he have said 'Everyone in Byakko City is a jerk and will dump you into a pit, don't go in there'? I think it would have conveyed the information a bit better than 'Byakko City is dangerous'.

Numemon: We should be fine here.
Kite: Hey, thanks! But what is with the people of Byakko City? Their Leader lied and dropped me into the basement.
Numemon: The Leader and everyone else are all fakes!
Kite: What!? Then who were those guys?

Whaaat? I didn't see this coming a mile away, no sir!

What a twist!

Numemon: That doesn't concern you! If you want to meet the real Leader, then go to the Mobius Desert. He's in the Mirage Tower beyond the desert.
Kite: He-hey hold on! What's going on?
Numemon: I can't tell you anything more! Don't go near Byakko City anymore!
Kite: ...oh, all right. See ya!

Kite's remarkably accepting of all this.

Nah, you know what? We should go back to the Leader, get in his face and be like 'Fuck you'. Then toss him down the trap.

Anyway, the Numemon led us out onto this cliff in Bullet Valley. It's not a - hey, wait a minute! How the hell did he get up there in the first place?

He climbed the wall.

RUBIES! FARM IT

I shall never make another hole joke as they are smellier than mold.

Up here is a rather mechanical-looking area, and since it's not past any place called Mobius Desert, we're not looking for it right now.

Explore, mister.

Beyond that, there's nothing really all that special to Bullet Valley. The only other exit is right to our south, leading back to the North Badlands W. So, where should we start searching for Mobius Desert?

If you guessed 'Nowhere, because we have to head back to Asuka City', congrats.

Jesus, this conveyance is so bad.

As an aside, now that we've reached West Sector, Tuskmon start spawning in the upper area of Plug Cape. They're just as threatening in Center Sector as they are in West (which means that Counter Crest is a godsend).

: This Renamon exclusive weapon will start at 1600 BIT!

These auctions are starting to get a little bit pricey, though I still have the BIT to spend on it without blinking an eye. Really, the only thing that should be costing any money is equipment upgrades and auctions. Inns are only now starting to break 100 BIT total for a stay, and healing items are pointless with two of my Digimon knowing how to heal.

Click for ambience! (Just a note, this track plays constantly until the next music link, barring random encounter music.)

Now that our little detour is out of the way, we can get to work actually making progress.

I feel like we should be much further in this game than we currently are.

You'll also find the gold Airdramon here, too, though Kokatorimon is by and far the most common enemy. Over Clocked boosts the rate at which the Blast Gauge fills, though it's not by much and the typical player will never use it. Vademon's chance of putting your Digimon to sleep seems rather high, though, which can lead to annoying situations where everyone is asleep and the only thing I can do is switch Digimon over and over again until I get two turns in a row and one of the idiots wakes up.

Instead of linking a picture, I'll just direct you to a classic Prometheus and Bob skit that Vademon reminded me of. Amazing.

Anyway, let's move on past the trials and tribulations that I don't show in these updates.

Agumon: There's a tall tower beyond the Mobius Desert! But I've never been there, so I don't know much!

Alright, cool. No new information, but cool.

Uselesssss.

There's also a Guilmon down the hill.

Guilmon: You get lost in all the nothingness.

Well, Mobius Desert is to our south, the only other exit that's not coming right back the way you came, so let's get going!

These are wild Charmanders and Charmeleons. Why aren't you catching them?

Interesting scenery.

Mobius Desert is terrible. And not for the reason that Noise Desert is terrible (i.e. large, open spaces with maybe two or three landmarks for screenshots.) No, it's much, much worse than that.

Nothing special here. Weak to Water and Thunder, like a lot of things in the West Sector. The Thunder Chip is nice (it ups your Thunder resistance for free) but not really worth grinding specifically for. There's better ways.

At the south edge of this screen, there's this guy. He'll only appear if your combined Rookie levels are between 60 and 90 (which is the main reason I grinded to level 20 against the Divermon).

He would have given us the quest to go fight Kyukimon, had we picked a different pack to start with.

Alright, so the real reason I hate Mobius Desert? Look at the title of the update.

...Get it yet?

That's right! It's a Lost Woods maze! Every map looks the same, alternating between the 'two cacti and three stone pillars' and 'a bunch of antennas'. It's a stupid-looking grid pattern, and I hate it. There are always four exits to each screen, one on the north, south, west, and east.

They're at least nice enough to give us a quick way to reset the area, if and when we get lost. I'll admit, I spent at least an hour here... There's just nothing else in the area, so after a while, I just give up and reset it. I'm not even sure how big the actual map is, since everything is the same. I could be looping and not realizing it.

What if I go East, or West first. Or West, then North, then South, then Eastx2, then North. WHAT THEN.

Well, Mirage Tower has to be entered from the West, but the rest of them should be able to be reached so long as you take the correct number of squares. I've confirmed the DRI Agents are largely order-independent, so long as you don't accidentally enter Mirage Tower when heading for Monmon's Agent.

But we're here now, so fuck it, I don't even care anymore.

Thankfully, the ambience stops playing. Unfortunately, it's back to the Byakko City? theme.

So hey, we made it to Mirage Hall!

Class Pres Aiko: ...and we came here, but... Who are the people that attacked Byakko City?

So these are the actual Byakko City villagers! Numemon led them here. Seriously, why didn't he just tell us that Byakko City had relocated? Geez.

Yeah, this makes his earlier line way stupider. So fucking bad.

Tamer Nakano: I collect card data and analyze it.

Right now, he'll only want to Card Battle us, but my deck hasn't been changed since I stole that Gabumon card from the kid, so he says it's too weak. Oh no, what a shame.

Do the card games, mister.

Down the ladder is the Inn, and I take the chance to heal up.

There's also an Armory off to the right, where I take the chance to upgrade Patamon's equipment again. Seriously, I wish the little bastard just got a two-handed weapon, but meh.

Now, ideally, I'd like to have Rosemon go against the Flymon, since Flymon is weak to Wind-based attacks, but... Rosemon doesn't actually have any Wind Techs. I mean, I have Angemon's dinky little Air Blast loaded, but that thing does like maybe 100 damage hitting the weakness, so brute force is the way to go.

Well, now that we've beaten up his three dudes, Byakko Leader seems to be a little more understanding.

That never makes any sense.

Byakko Leader: I'm sorry for mistaking you for the A.o.A.
Kite: Ah, that's OK... But wait, does that mean the people in Byakko City are...?
Byakko Leader: Yes. They're the A.o.A! They just came and took over Byakko City! We were held in the basement prison... But Numemon came and rescued us.

Y'know, I'm curious. Is Byakko Leader a human or an AI? Because, I mean, his only job is to fight us, but an AI wouldn't be able to just pack up its stuff and move.

Racist. PokeDigimon are AI and they can do stuff, too.

Kite: I see... But the A.o.A and Lucky Mouse... And what's happening to Digimon Online?
Byakko Leader: I don't know either.

Byakko Leader: If you want to know more, then find that Numemon. If you go to the Dum Dum Factory you'll find him.
Kite: OK!

...The Dum Dum Factory.

What, are you dum-founded?

Prizes!

Byakko Leader: After all, you did beat me! And it might come in handy later on!
Kite: Yeah! I got the Byakko Badge!
Byakko Leader: There'll be more A.o.A. Be careful!

Y'know, I really hate the stupid maze, but I didn't have to do any stupid back-and-forth trekking across all of the Sectors unlocked so far, so I think Byakko Leader is my favorite so far.

At least we're three-fourths done with the main plot of Digimon Online. Good things can only happen once we've beaten the Leader of North Sector... But first, we have to figure out what the fuck is going on with the A.o.A and Numemon. To Dum Dum Factory!